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Harry Brown (poet)
Harry Peter McNab Brown, Jr. (April 30, 1917 - November 2, 1986) was an American poet, novelist, and Academy Award-winning screenwriter. Life Born in Portland, Maine, Brown was educated at Harvard University, where he was friends with American poet, Robert Lowell. Brown dropped out of Harvard after his sophomore year to write poetry and work at Time magazine. He also and contributed to and became a sub-editor of The New Yorker. From 1940 to 1942 he and Dunstan Thompson co-edited Thompson's literary magazine, Vice Versa.Phillip Trower, Brief Biography, Dunstan Thompson Poems 1950-1974]. Web, May 5, 2013. In 1941, Charles Scribner's Sons of New York published Brown's sustained long poem, The Poem of Bunker Hill. The 158-page poetic epic won praise for its author's literary gifts as a poet and for the timely presentation of a vital topic - young men and war. Louise Bogan was quoted in The New Yorker as saying: "Brown...possesses one of the most unmistakable poetic gifts which have recently appeared. Such a talent is not only basically good from the beginning but exhibits, also from the first, all the signs of virtuosity." Also published, early in that year, was Brown's first full-length book, The End of a Decade. From the American Revolutionary warfare of The Poem of Bunker Hill, Harry Brown went directly to modern military operations. Brown enlisted in July 1941 in the US Army Corps of Engineers where he served at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. In 1942 he joined the staff of Yank magazine. Brown wrote a column for the magazine under the nom de plume of "PFC Artie Greengroin" with a book published in 1945 of the columns under that title. Brown also wrote a play A Sound of Hunting that was produced on Broadway in 1946 starring Burt Lancaster and Frank Lovejoy. It was later filmed by Stanley Kramer under the title Eight Iron Men with a different cast of Bonar Colleano, Lee Marvin, and Arthur Franz in 1952, then was a 1961 television production with Peter Falk, Robert Lansing, and Sal Mineo directed by Seymour Robbie. In 1944 Brown wrote the novel A Walk in the Sun, which was made into a film with the same name in 1945. Director Lewis Milestone asked Brown to come to Hollywood as a screenwriter. He worked on films including Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), A Place in the Sun (1951) (winning an Oscar), his own Eight Iron Men, and Ocean's 11 (1960). Brown also was credited for his work on the first ''Ocean's 11 when it was remade in 2001.'' Brown died from emphysema in Los Angeles in 1986. Recognition * 1936 The Young Poets Prize, awarded by Poetry magazine * 1937 Lloyd McKim Garrison Award * 1938/1939 Shelley Memorial Award * 1952 Academy Award for Best Screenplay, A Place in the Sun (with Michael Wilson).A Place in the Sun: Awards, Internet Movie Database. Web, May 18, 2014. Publications Poetry *''The End of a Decade''. Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1940. *''The Poem of Bunker Hill''. New York: Scribner, 1941. *''The Violent: New poems''. Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1943. *''The Beast in his Hunger: Poems''. New York: Knopf, 1949. Plays *''A Sound Of Hunting: A play in three acts''. New York: Knopf, 1946. Novels *''It's A Cinch, Private Finch!'' (with Ralph Stein), New York & London: Whittlesey House / McGraw-Hill, 1943. * A Walk In The Sun. New York: Knopf, 1944; University of Nebraska Press, 1998 ISBN 978-0-8032-6148-8 *''Artie Greengroin, Pfc''. New York: Knopf, 1945. *''The Stars in Their Courses: A novel''. New York: Knopf, 1960. *''A Quiet Place To Work''. New York: Knopf, 1968. *''The Wild Hunt''. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973. ISBN 978-0-15-196720-9 Screenplays *''Ocean's Eleven'' (by Steven Soderbergh, Peter Andrews, George Clayton Johnson, Ted Griffin, Harry Brown, Jack Golden Russell, Charles Lederer). New York: Pocket Books, 1960; Alexandria VA: Alexander Street Press, 2004. See also *List of U.S. poets References External links ;Poems *Harry Brown 1917-1986 at the Poetry Foundation ;About *Harry Brown at American Authors by Answers.com. "Harry Brown, 69, a screenwriter" obituary, the New York Times *Harry Brown at the Internet Movie Database Category:1917 births Category:1986 deaths Category:Harvard University alumni Category:American novelists Category:American poets Category:American screenwriters Category:Deaths from emphysema Category:People from Portland, Maine Category:Writers from Maine Category:20th-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets